I am staring at the end of my blissful week off. I am wondering where all my time went, and I yet I know, I spent it doing very little. Which for me, is a great change. Today though, I look at everything surrounding me and think... Oh My Goodness.... I have to clean everything.... Today.
Sidenote: I am at the bottom of a bag of raisin bran and it is of course.... too raisin-y. I feel like I'm chewing cud instead of raisin bran.
Mike and I spent Thursday together. We had a wonderful day. We went to Aullwood Audubon Center, and explored the trails, and just enjoyed the absolutely beautiful scenery. I am hoping that the next time Dusty comes out, I can take her there because the place is just so well set up. It's a place that you can take your children to learn and explore.
Afterwards, we drove to Covington, OH and purchased 1.25 lbs of morels for an ungodly price. But we've been hunting without avail, and Mike's back just isn't up to all the hiking it takes to keep exploring until you finally find some. But they were really good.
We have B this weekend... well, since this Thursday. I've been real lax lately, just trying to let them get accustomed to me, but finding several candy wrappers behind your furniture, and a cheese stick wrapper on the floor isn't jiving with me. It's not going to jive with me.
Anyhow, I plan on getting as much done today as possible, and then relaxing.
We went and saw Nanny McPhee last night. We really liked it.
Before the movie, we stopped at the bookstore which was dangerously close to JoAnne's Craft Store. Even more dangerous because they were having a clearance sale because they were moving the store. Mike and B went to the bookstore, I went to JoAnnes. I was only in JoAnnes for 2 minutes before I called for back up. "Grab a cart, and meet me at the yarn." They had an 80% sale on yarn, and getting 6.00 yarn for 1.19 was something that I could not pass up. Mike kept encouraging me. 84.00 in yarn after it was all over, but considering that it would have been close to 500.00 without the disount, that was completely worth it.
So, I plan on baking strawberry banana cake, sipping tea, and crocheting this afternoon after the daily toil is complete.
After a slight bit of evil and cleverly dropped bait, I coaxed the elusive Dustbuffalo out to my house for a lovely Saturday.
I have this week off, and I have enough to get done to last me for a few months. Hopefully, by the end of this week, spring cleaning will be finished, I will be free of my storage unit, and I will be ending the week with Madame Buffalo and I lounging nicely at the Indian Palace, Indian food buffet.
I've a little Tenacious D to rip into while I clean the kitchen.
Mike is working on sticks, when we take an intermission from our duties, we shall be mulling through all 12 hours of Dune from SciFi. I love that movie. I want the directors cut. If there is such an animal.
B has a bunny rabbit that he's named, "Dragon One." And he wants to take D1 everywhere with him. He's at that slightly precarious age where he still loves stuffed animals, but they are about to be so not cool anymore.
I think we will be making him a stuffed animal that is an actual dragon. ha. ha.
We had an unexpected conversation today....
B: I know where babies come from...
insert Mike and I both stopping to give him complete and full attention
Mike: Oh yeah?
B: Yeah... they come from girl's (pause, looks at me) I won't say in front of Linda.
Me: That's okay, I'm gonna go in the kitchen, and you can say whatever you like.
(whispers)
(Now this happens at just the time that we are preparing B to go back to his mother's.)
(B comes into the kitchen acting as if there was no conversation that put me in the kitchen. I look for something for B to do so that I can ask Mike what exactly he said, as I am dying of curiousity.)
Apparently... they come from girl's belly buttons.
I think Mike nearly swallowed his tongue after the whole ordeal and I nearly snickered myself silly.
Was it four or five years ago April 18-22 that I met and ventured upon a most wonderful journey which is a landmark in my life? I got to meet, know, and love people that I had no clue I would be so close to, and love so much in just four days. Time passes so quickly.
love you guys
I went to the thrift store this week and found (finally) four barstools to go to our breakfast nook. We can actually eat at our kitchen table now. ( The breakfast nook is a feature of the house, but unfortunately, it's barstool height, decent barstools aren't cheap)
Mike and I have next week off and it's sure to be interesting. I am torn between getting a whole bunch of shit done, and trying to relax. I don't know, We'll have to see.
I have enlisted the aide (once again) of Madame buffalo. She and I will be clearing out my storage unit, and helping me get some shit moved around in my house. After that... guacamole baby. Yeah.
I don't like the situation that I am working in. There are a couple of girls who are lazy, and actually sit down for hours at a time. They all stop early, making me have to stop early because I can't do my job without them doing theirs. But the management seems to know about this, doesn't seem to care. I am trying to believe that if they don't care, then I shouldn't. But I get this sneaky suspicion that somehow it's going to come back and bite me in the ass.
Other than the above, I like the job. I fear that I will get laid off in July because they are a plant that works with GM, and there's a whole lot of adjusting going on with them. Not concerned.... at least trying not to be. I am going to ride this job until it ends (if it ends). and then I will go to another job. I think I am giong to apply at Fed ex or sommat out here. We'll see. A great bonus is that Mike and I have matching schedules (except for the part where I work 2nd shift and he works 3rd.)
I had someone rear end me yesterday. It was just a bump, but the bumper to my 88 Dodge Colt is all but hanging off already. Well the bump was hard enough to cause the bumper to drastically hang and of course, I was on my way to work. This is sorta how it happened:
I yeilded like I am supposed to on the on ramp to the freeway.
I feel a bump, hear a crunch, and fill the air with my cursing.
I try to calm down, look in the rear view mirror, and grab her liscence plate #.
She comes up to the car. She addresses me. She asks me if I'm okay.
Asks me if I'm going to get out of the car... I look at her and say, I think I'm okay. I'll get out in a second. (I'm still trying to put a lid on my temper)
She presses, like I'm supposed to get out right that second. So I get out. I look, bumper that was crooked, is now bumper hanging down on left handside.
She asks if it was hanging like that before, I tell her it was crooked, but it wasn't hanging. She tries to take that statement and run with it, as in, 'she can't be held responsible for it because it was already hanging.'
hello. Crooked bumper does not equal hanging bumper.
She notes that I wrote down her liscence plate number. And I told her that I did that before I even got out of the car. You never know if someone is going to hit and run.
To which she states that she is not the type of person yadda yadda yadda.
I tell her I don't really care, I don't know her, and if the roles were reversed, she would do the same thing. It's what you are supposed to do. People are crazy. you never know what someone is going to do when they get out of a car and walk up to yours after an accident.
I suspect that I am suffering from "Your relatively new VW is better than my old Dodge Colt" I say nothing about it.
So, again, I say, it wasn't hanging.
She's like, so ummm... what are we going to do. And I'm thinking, and thinking, and looking at my bumper.... and not wanting to be late for work.... and she says, "Well we need to decide what we are going to do."
At that moment, I had enough of her attitude. So, I say, "Well, if I have to make a decision, right this second... let us do the legal and proper thing. Let us call the police."
I go to call the Police, and whad'ya know? One pulled right up. But they were from the wrong area and had to call our police department.
Woman at fault begins crying and calls her boyfriend, who eventually comes to scene and starts taking pictures, and talking about how they can't be held responsible for the hanging bumper because it was already hanging, and that its been like that a while because of all the rust.
I tell him (again) It wasn't hanging. See big ass bolt that was holding my bumper up? It was not rusted. Even better he tries to use legal jargon on me.
If you are going to use jargon, you should really make sure the word exists.
Again, little rusted dodge colt vs their late model VW now extends to the owners. Not only is their car better than mine, but now they're smarter than me. fuckers.
I feel uncomfortable with him taking pictures, I ask him to stop taking pictures of me and my property, and he keeps on anyways. Showing to his girlfriend and talking about rust.
insert me rolling my eyes
Meanwhile, I need to be getting ready for work. So I'm trying to get all Mac Geyver on my bumper. He keeps asking me how much I think it would be to put the bumper back where it was before the accident ( aka i don't want this on my insurance) and I tell him, I'm not interested in money. I was asked to make a decision, so I made one.
Well, poor white girl in Old rusty Dodge colt must need money... All he has is 20 bucks... do I think that would be enough???
I feel like hes slapped me
I SAID I DON'T NEED YOUR FUCKING MONEY.
(i'm not stupid. i know that he could say, well I gave her 20 bucks and she accepted it)
I made a deal in my mind: If I get this bumper up and out of the possibility that it might hit my tire while I'm driving before police arrive, I'll leave. No report, I'll let them go. If police arrive before bumper is up, I'll file an accident report.
Bumper out of way, I want to go to work... I tell them, I tell the officer that was waiting for the other officer to arrive. The woman looks at me like she hates me (I don't fucking care)
Hindsight, I wish I'd waited for the police, but I chose to let them go, and I still went to work. I dislike judgemental people. Now that I think it over, I realize just how judgemental they were.
Oh well. Whatever. It's done.
I notice lately that I am becoming an old woman. I don't mean that in some dreadful way of : OMG I'm getting old!!!! (Though I do notice the wrinkles in my face much more this past year than any other)
I mean that I am figuring out what I like; what I enjoy. Strange that they are such simple things. I don't know why but I've always had the impression that my everyday life had to be filled with a lot of money for contentment.
Don't get me wrong. I like money. I like to spend money (sometimes). But truly, I am finding that I like teaching B how to count after lightening when waiting for thunder. I like playing in the rain. I like dancing. I like listening to particular music. I like spearmint tea sweetened with stevia. I like spring thunderstorms, and the smell of the fresh air that they bring. I like ee cummings. I like sitting in my favorite chair with my cats no less than three feet away, and usually one of them curled up in my lap, and vegging. I like unexpected days off with Mike. I like looking at crochet patterns. I like my hair long and curly. I like hot baths and soap. I like trial size bottles.... yes, it's a strange thing, but I've even got trial size salt and pepper grinders. It's like the little bottles call to me....
Anyhow.
I'm realizing that being at ease has only part to do with security. Security is much more related to self than to money.
It's like I'm figuring myself out just when I thought I had a handle on myself.
Following the same line of thinking, I'm discovering what the little old lady in me does not like.
I don't like racism, laziness, intolerance, insensitivity, selfishness, and rudeness.
And if you are going to the grocery store, can you please not take up the whole fucking aisle if you are stopping to look at something. Gets my knickers all in a twist. And if you are going to the movie, leave your infant with a babysitter. I know that some people might get pissed, but dammit, I pay almost ten fucking dollars to watch the movie in surround sound that doesn't include someone continuously pacifying their child right during the part of the movie that everyone is talking all hushed.
On that note, movie theatres shouldn't allow anyone under the age of 18 into a movie by themselves. Tough that everyone has to suffer at the hands of a select few, but really, I've been to so many movies (and it's getting worse) where a group of teenagers were putting on their own obnoxious show.
See above for grumpy old lady in the making.
Easter was nice. I tried to go into the day with no expectations other than getting my laundry done. Mike and I decided that we would rather go to the buffet than to cook a dinner at home. Several hours of preparation, and then clean up. No thank you. Waiting in line for 30 minutes. Well worth it.
Tomorrow, I go swimming. Every now and then I like to go to the club and try to exhaust myself. Swim until I am weak and can only manage to walk to the car and drive my ass home and get in bed and take a long nap with a fan.
There's a thunderstorm. I'm turing off U2 and grabbing my big ass book of ee cummings and cuppa tea.
Today we went to the flea market. I love the flea market when the weather starts to heat up. Everyone is out there selling their wares. You never know what you may find. Mike and I are considering setting up a booth and just seeing how that goes.
Today we picked up some jeans, some socks, some glassware, smelled a whole lot of candles and just generally meandered. It was fun, but it took almost the whole day. We stopped by Walmart on the way home to pick up a few things and then proceeded to leave everything just inside the door so that we don't have to deal with putting them away right now.
In other news...
The temporary agency found me a job in a factory scanning and sequencing auto parts. Woohoo. I have the weekends off, and even better, I have off whenever Mike has off because they do parts for GM. So, they match GM's schedule. This takes a signifigant amount of strain off of us because we were getting no time together previously. Anytime we did get together seemed to be monopolized by those dreadful errands that you just HAVE to get done...
I am trying to take things a bit easier. I am tired of being a go getter. I just want to relax, because trying to be motivated and to help motivate those around me has exhausted me. Not to mentioned caused some serious tension.
I finally joined a gym here that has all the things that I've been looking for. I am very pleased.
Things seem to be settling down with the kids and I feel a bit more comfortable, but there are still times that I feel the need to just say, "Ok, I've had my fill for this moment, I'm going upstairs and taking a bath."
I made potato candy yesterday. The stuff sounds horrid, but it's delicious, fairly easy, and a secret weapon. I will take over the world... one baked good at a time.
We have joined the modern age. We now have internet, cable, dvr, and a home telephone.
Unfortunately, I don't have the time right now to do a whole bunch of updating, and catching up. Today promises to be a busy day, and it looks like I won't get to truly enjoy this until this evening. That's okay though, it'll be such a treat. I've got a date tonight with this computer, some rootbeer, and some chinese food.
Maybe I can catch some of you on line tonight for a little msn cubering. Yes, that was mispelt upon purpose. :P